由Ernie · Tadla

中国人有时间一个膨胀的看法，看见作为历史一部分连续流以对礼物的较少重点。 它仅是通过通过时间那个体或事务可能证明信得过。 因此guanxi重要性和耐心。 他们一定计划，但它是为长的期限。

多数西部企业人能只看就这个处所的财政结果。 中国买卖人总看更远的下来路。 他们寻找一个长期，相互好处、胜利或者胜利关系。

西方人-与我们的天定时器， PDAs， BlackBerrys，对名单和紧紧预定-由他们的态度、悟性和冷漠是经常愤怒和沮丧“我们的”时间。 我们的时间是线性的。 通过，当前。 未来。

对汉语时间是圆的。 您的文化何时是5,000年，什么是仓促？ 一切在正确时间。
当我在中国到达了，我是很沮丧以他们的迟慢。 他们为任命总是晚。 有时他们根本没出现。 我察觉他们是散漫的，混乱和不恭我的时间。 想象那，我的时间。

当我来了解他们的时间透视，我意识到什么他们做着重要比什么他们是做，在正确时间，下个事件将发生，自然地。

In my anger and frustration, thinking I was being funny, I would joke to my other Western friends, “You never have to worry about the Chinese taking over the world, they aren’t organized enough.” Yuk, Yuk! Well, now I am the one who has “lost face” because they are taking over the world.

In the West, time is our enemy. We manage time, save time, make time, and buy time and not waste time. Time is a limited commodity. Time is money!

In the East, time is a friend. All things unfold naturally. No need to rush and cut short a meaningful conversation to run to another one. Stay, enjoy. Pay respect (face) to your current audience.

Yes, my conditioning had a powerful hold on me. Even though I knew my Chinese friend would be late, I always showed up 10 minutes early.

Alex Wang, our senior film producer and I often attended various American Chamber of Commerce meetings together. We always arrived early, but it was noticeable how uneasy Alex felt.

As I accepted the Chinese ways, I stopped getting angry if they did not show up on time. I simply carried a book or I brought out my to-do phone list out and did business on my cell phone.

If you are expecting to do successful business in China, you will need to re-adjust your perception of time scheduling and expectations. Things always take much longer than you expect. Everything is always late, by our standards. If they don’t trust you, nothing ever gets done. It is all lost in a vacuum of nothingness.

Since I have returned home I muse at how everyone, even in the laid back, relaxed Okanagan, is rushing around, brandishing “busyness” as proof of success and happiness. I wonder?

This I learned in China: get in and stay in the flow. You have time for everything that’s important; time is your friend; all things work out at the right time and in the right way.

Time’s Up!

March 2001, was approaching and the end of my two-year contract with PPI.

I knew I had done a good job and had done myself out of a job. A good consultant does himself out of a job. I knew in my heart there was no need to renew the contract.

However, Lovy and I were not ready to return. We had fallen in love with China — its history, traditions, culture, values, the people, and with Shanghai. We wanted the adventure to continue a bit longer.

Lovy had a robust English translation business going and, as an active, high-profile member of the American Chamber of Commerce-Shanghai, I felt confident I could land another position with a member company, or a similar consulting assignment, particularly now that I had China experience, and was considered local without an ex-pat pay and benefit expectations.
So, we decided to leave PPI, but stay on in China.

As destiny would have it, Dan, satisfied with my performance, had ambitious plans for his organization and saw a place for me. He had spun off a fledgling independent advertising communications company, Dynamic Marketing Group (DMG). He invited me to move over to DMG as group general manager in a start-up situation and continue to maintain my training connection with PPI.

This was March 2001.

In March 2002, it was Lovy’s turn. Her time was up! My high-school sweetheart wife of 43 years passed away from a quick, virulent, incurable cancer.

It had been seven years since the kidney transplant had extended her life and allowed us to be in China together. Actually, the gift of life in the transplanted kidney contained the seed of her death. The anti-rejection drugs she took were immuno-suppressive and left her vulnerable to the marauding cancer cells that are floating around in all our bodies.

The ending began when in November she experienced severe pain in her lower back. We began the customary traipsing from hospital to hospital trying to get a diagnosis and relief from the excruciating pain. We traveled by train to Hangzhou, to a hospital that had an American internist from Loma Linda University in California. He had been monitoring her kidney results and she had developed a rapport and trust with him. We obtained scans, MRI, X-rays, the whole gamut. No answers. No relief.

I used to come home from work and she would meet me with tears in her eyes. She had an odd look as she gently put her hand on my cheek in a way she had never done before. I thought she was in deeper pain or was frightened, but it wasn’t about her. She was concerned about who would look after me after she was gone. She intuitively felt that she was leaving. It was then, which I later found out, that she approached our friend, Marjorie, and asked her to keep an eye on me. As December approached, we made plans to return to Canada for Christmas and to get plugged back into our Canadian health-care system.

She was gone within four months. Two months after we returned, she was officially diagnosed with an incurable cancer. The only thing left to do, the oncologist at the Surrey Cancer Center advised, was to make her last days as comfortable as possible. The cancer had spread to her lymph glands, lungs, bones, ovaries, and throughout her entire body.

I was with her for the last four months and stayed with her 24/7 in her hospice room at the Mission Hospital. She was heavily drugged on morphine, but had moments of lucidity and consciousness as the pain and painkiller fought each other for control. In those precious moments, while I lay on the hospital bed with her in my arms, we shared unbelievable moments of love. Those four months and those nineteen days that we were together around the clock were so bittersweet. When you get married, they say, “And they lived happily ever after.” Well, that’s a crock. Every love story ends in tragedy because one always dies first and leaves the other behind.

Those three years together in China were the happiest years of our forty-three years of marriage. We grew so much closer and enjoyed a new life and awakening.

Eight months later, in November 2002, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer that had metastasized to my lungs.

Then, I was flooded with anger, fear, pain, and resentment at the big cheat the Universe had handed me. First, Lovy, now me. I hit bottom. In my anguish one night I called out, “Why me?”

The voice inside my head asked, “Ernie, what do you believe?”

I pondered that for a moment.
• I believe that life is change. Change is constant, therefore it is natural and, if natural, it must be good. Right now, my life is changing, so this must be good.
• I believe in a perfect Universe, an intelligent universe governed by natural and spiritual laws: the law of cause and effect and the law of sowing and reaping. Death is as natural as birth. The Universe unfolds, maybe not according to my plans, preference or timing, but nevertheless it unfolds, as it should, as it does.
• I believe that we are born with a purpose. Life isn’t about earning and spending. We are here for a mission, a purpose.

“That’s what I believe.”

I found that a worthwhile exercise and it gave me peace, meaning and purpose during that painful time in my life and still does today.

My life was changing. All is well. Lovy completed her purpose and moved on. Mine was not completed and I must stay a little longer.

I was cured, healed and free from all cancer both in my prostate and my lungs within three months, and remain free to this day. (five years later)

Why did she leave and not me? When we finish our purpose, we move on. Just like a good student or good employee, you don’t keep them in the same grade or job forever.

Lovy had completed her purpose and got promoted. I am still here because I have not completed mine. I still have much to do.

Part of my purpose, I believe, is to do exactly what I am doing right now — telling and writing my story about China to bring understanding and acceptance of this wonderful country and beautiful people. This is my contribution to world peace.

When I returned to Shanghai, I shared my story with the entire staff and everyone I met. I was the featured speaker at the company Christmas party with over 100 staff. I got cancer and was cured to demonstrate a miracle. It was not a movie they saw or book they read. I was standing in their midst. Here was an ordinary person who worked and walked among them. If it happened to me, it could happen to them. Miracles only happen to people who believe in them. I urged them to have a dream and believe in it.

I have left seeds like that all over China, including with my street beggar, Boa Hai, and I am now planting seeds by writing this book, making speeches and in private conversation with whomever is interested in life, living, peace, happiness even with the Chinese. This is my mission, my purpose.

Ernie Tadla, www.odysseychina.net

Next week: China Lesson Seven. Communication Chinese Style